The Sunflower_ On the Possibilities and - Wiesenthal, Simon copy

HERBERT MARCUSE
I think I would have acted the way you did, that is to say, refused the request of the
dying SS man. It always seemed to me inhuman and a travesty of justice if the executioner
asked the victim to forgive. One cannot, and should not, go around happily killing and
torturing and then, when the moment has come, simply ask, and receive, forgiveness. In my
view, this perpetuates the crime.
By the way, the question transcends the Jewish problem. As a member of the National
Liberation Front, would one forgive a Marine sergeant the killing and torturing of one's
friends, wife, children? Is anyone justified, entitled to forgive?
I still remember the traumatic shock I had when I read that, after the assassination of
Rathenau, his mother went to the assassin's mother and comforted her!
I believe that the easy forgiving of such crimes perpetuates the very evil it wants to
alleviate.